The Band's Visit

Bikur Hatizmoret (original title)

Once, not long ago, a small Egyptian Police band arrived in Israel.They came to play at an initiation ceremony but, due to bureaucracy, bad luck, or for whatever reason, they were left stranded at the airport. They tried to manage on their own, only to find themselves in a desolate, almost forgotten, small Israeli town, somewhere in the heart of the desert.

A lost band in a lost town. Not many people remember this. It wasn't that important.

The Band's Visit

A mini-scandal erupted earlier this year when "The Band's Visit," Israeli filmmaker Eran Kolirin's sublime and bittersweet comedy, was disqualified as a nominee for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar because it contained too much English.

Now, audiences can see for themselves, and they will no doubt agree that this smart, subtle, deceptively simple little film was robbed. With luck, filmgoers who discover this gem about an Egyptian police band stranded in a small Israeli town will make it the must-see movie of the season.

It begins just as eight men who make up the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra arrive at an unnamed Israeli airport. They're on their way to perform at an Arab culture center, but between their Arabic, broken English and nonexistent Hebrew, they wind up in a dusty desert backwater, befuddled but still impeccably turned out in their handsome light-blue uniforms. Stuck for the night, until the next bus comes, the musicians warily navigate what passes for life in the moribund town, with the group's proper, diffident conductor, Tewfiq (Sasson Gabai), striking up a friendship with an earthy, direct cafe owner named Dina (Ronit Elkabetz); a handsome young violinist named Khaled (Saleh Bakri) embarking on an improbably eventful night on the town; and a clarinetist named Simon (Khalifa Natour) finding himself at an awkward dinner with two alternately mistrustful and expansive Jewish couples.

Although a political subtext informs the entire encounter between the band and their hosts, it remains bubbling beneath the surface.

Kolirin focuses on the ballet of human interaction, letting scenes unfold with few words and a multitude of gestures and meanings, resulting in a small masterpiece of quiet, expressive physical comedy. What ultimately makes "The Band's Visit" such an unmitigated pleasure to watch is the unforced way Kolirin brings the journey to its natural but deeply affecting end.

STOP the presses - there's good news out of the Middle East. It arrives in the form of "The Band's Visit," a modest and charming comedy from Israel. The Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra - eight rumpled guys in bright blue uniforms - travels from Egypt to Israel to perform at the opening of a cultural center.

Only, they get on the wrong bus at the Tel Aviv airport and find themselves lost in a dusty Israeli backwater. Perhaps the error was for the best, for how else could the musicians have met sultry Dina?

She's the woman who runs a roadside café in the town where the band is, but shouldn't be. Since it's too late to catch the right bus, band members accept Dina's offer of overnight lodging with locals.

The band's leader, Tawfig, and another Egyptian end up at Dina's place. But instead of sitting around talking, Dina changes her tight jeans for a foxy red dress and takes Tawfig, a widower, out for a night on the town (what there is of it, anyway).

"The Band's Visit" is the feature debut of director-writer Eran Kolirin, who previously worked in TV. He has an eye and an ear for comedy as he depicits the visitors' adventures in a strange land.

Kolirin doesn't go for belly laughs. He prefers subtle, wry humor, much in the fashion of Finland's Aki Kaurismaki. Ronit Elkabetz, as Dina, sizzles in an offbeat way - a mix of Cher and Vampira, if you wish. (Perhaps you saw Elkabetz in the 2001 sexcapade "Late Marriage." If you didn't, rent it.)

Sasson Gabai is a perfect foil as the thoughtful Tawfig. They're an unlikely couple, to be sure, but there's some strange chemistry brewing. Forget all those high-profile movies opening this weekend. "The Band's Visit" is the one to see. I'd even bet that the film will take the foreign-language Oscar, except it was rejected as Israel's official nominee.

The bureaucrats in Hollywood ruled that it wasn't eligible because 50 percent of the dialogue is in English, as opposed to Arabic and Hebrew. (Did they use a stopwatch?) No wonder a lot of people don't take the Oscars seriously.

The setting of The Band's Visit is a charmless Israeli desert town realistically assessed by a local café operator as offering ''no Arab culture, no Israeli culture, no culture at all.'' Yet the breeze in the air smells distinctly Scandinavian, so droll is the observational wit and compositional eye of writer-director Eran Kolirin in his thoughtful charmer. His musical troupe is an Egyptian police band, booked for a gig at an Arab cultural center, who arrive by bus at the wrong Israeli town.

Bored by the daily nothingness around her, the café lady, Dina (Ronit Elkabetz, the sexy-tough star of Late Marriage), offers overnight lodging to the stranded musicians - some at her place, others with none-too-eager neighbors. Dina would surely appreciate the irony that the movie - a superb chamber piece in Hebrew, Arabic, and halting English about communication - is another outstanding specimen of world cinema disqualified for Best Foreign Language Oscar consideration. (Cockeyed Academy rabbis and imams calculated that more than half the dialogue is in English - an Academy Tower of Babel taboo.)

Never mind. The night is long, the town is quiet, the band leader (marvelous Sasson Gabai) is prim, and Arab-Israeli distrust isn't erased overnight. But something marvelous happens as the filmmaker, in his first feature, expertly metes out small scenes of communication between people taught, for generations, to be wary of one another: This Band swings with the rhythms of hope.

CANNES -- The Israelis don't exactly put out the red carpet for an Egyptian police band in this radiant and wise comedy about a benign miscommunication between the two countries. Set smack dab in the outer sands of Israel, "The Band's Visit" (Bikur Hatizmoret) shows what you can do with virtually nothing for a set and no big boxoffice elements -- you can make a terrific film about people.

Spry and laced with understated wisdom, "The Band's Visit" could be a winner on the U.S. select-site circuit. Best, this glorious road show also posits larger themes, not only about the relations between the countries but of mankind. And it does so with such deferential grace and good humor that the grandness of the themes never get in the way of the entertaining scenario.

A "little" film with a great reach, it met a crescendo of applause in its Un Certain Regard screening. Underscored with droll comedy and counterpointed with unexpected revelations, this film is an oasis of creativity in the often barren bigness of a festival.

Outfitted in musical-comedy style, powder-blue uniforms, a small Egyptian police band lands in Israel as part of a cultural goodwill exchange. Alas, good intentions do not always ensure welcome follow-up. The proud little group arrives at the airport with no reception or greeters and no way to connect with either country's officialdom. What to do in a strange and historically hostile environment?

Every step, most uproariously, is in the wrong direction, and the band ends up in a far-flung desert town. Under the baton of their head officer/singer, they are regarded by the locals as an amusing oddity. Fortunately, hospitality is extended by a local restaurant worker, Dina, who offers her tiny apartment for two band members and inveigles a cohort to house the rest of the musicians.

Juxtaposing the group's desperation with their individual peccadilloes, filmmaker Eran Kolirin has composed a delightfully dry comedy. Unexpected connections and friendships develop as everyone undertakes to make do of the screwy situation.

Robustly spare, the film is graced by precise and superbly modulated performances, highlighted by Sasson Gabai's restrained work as the tight-laced leader and Saleh Bakri's effervescent aplomb as the band's free spirit. As the generous hostess, Ronit Elkabetz's rich and rambunctious performance resonates throughout.

Similarly, the technical contributions are precise and powerful. Shai Goldman's spry visual compositions and framings are hilarious and eloquent, while Habib Shehadeh Hanna's score enlivens with all the right grace notes.

This debut feature by writer-director Eran Kolirin follows the confusions and minor comic adventures of the eight-piece Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, which sets off from Egypt to perform at an Arab cultural center in Israel and gets stranded in the wrong town on the edge of a desert.

Not much of consequence happens, apart from the musicians communicating with the locals in English and getting housed and fed and entertained by a few of them. But Kolirin has a fine sense of where to place the camera and when to cut between shots for maximum comic effect, and his two lead actors--Sasson Gabai as the band's conductor and Ronit Elkabetz (Or) as one of the locals--are terrific. (Incidentally, both are Israeli Jews.)

The Israel of "The Band's Visit" is one in which God has pushed the pause button. Set in a small, out-of-the-way desert town called Betah Tikva - a development that appears to have stopped developing from sheer inertia - Eran Kolirin's debut film is about the comedy and tragedy of the things that separate people: borders, religions, languages, loneliness. It's a small, profoundly satisfying movie that keeps echoing long after it's over.

In a sort of cosmic joke, an Egyptian police band has arrived in Betah Tikva, its eight members uniformed in powder blue and utterly at sea. They're supposed to be in Petah Tikva to play at the opening of a new Arab Cultural Center but they got on the wrong bus. There's no cultural center in Betah Tikva. There's no culture or center, either. There's only an apartment high-rise, a cafe, a public phone, and locals who've long since given up trying. The appearance of Arabs bearing tubas and ouds is a welcome dash of the surreal.

Leading the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra is Lieutenant Colonel Tewfiq Zakaria, a prim aesthete who's happiest when everything is running according to schedule; actor Sasson Gabai gives him a stiff back and unfathomably sad eyes. His second-in-command is a milquetoast named Simon (Khalifa Natour), who once composed two measures of a clarinet concerto and just stopped - there's a lot of that in this movie.

The only other member of the band we really get to know is Khaled (Saleh Bakri), a rangy young dreamboat with a pickup routine about Chet Baker that works wonders on women. After the initial shock of being marooned in what's theoretically enemy territory gives way to tentative relief - the Israelis are slackers, just like the ones they have back in Egypt - the group fans out into the apartments of a few Good Samaritan locals.

At the center of "The Band's Visit" is the relationship between Tewfiq and Dina (Ronit Elkabetz), the cafe owner with whom he stays. She has been around the block - several times at least - and her loose, carnal playfulness initially strikes the Lieutenant Colonel with horror.

Yet he's a gentleman, he's in her debt, and he's intrigued. One of the film's most delicious culture clashes is that between prudish men and sensual women, and its most pleasurable scenes are those in which Dina teases this gentle martinet out of his shell. (Elkabetz is remarkable, with a potent, mature eroticism and great hair.) Khaled, meanwhile, has invited himself along on a double date at a wheezy, underpopulated roller disco. Simon and some of the others shack up with an unemployed sad sack named Itzik (Rubi Moskovitz), whose wife is celebrating her birthday. (She isn't delighted about finding a bunch of Arab policeman on the other side of her cake.) "The Band's Visit" intercuts between these three story lines with dogged regularity, and it hits the expected we're-all-really-just-human-beings themes. Surprisingly, it then goes further, probing the chambers of our wayward hearts and wondering why we so readily accept substitutes for love: art, for instance, or sex. The movie posits shyness as the human condition; it says we're locked not in our respective cultures or spiritual beliefs but in the prisons of ourselves. Maybe this is all we get, says someone in the movie: a baby sleeping in the next room and tons of loneliness.

Maybe. And maybe all it takes to connect is a Chet Baker solo or a song by the great Egyptian singer Umm Kalthoum. Or fishing: Tewfiq can't explain to Dina what Arab music means to him, but he bursts into eloquence when describing baiting and setting his hook. Language here is both crucial and what we make of it: If the movie sees Arabic as aural poetry and Hebrew as the language of resignation, then English is a free zone in every sense of the phrase.

Here's an irony for you, then: Because over 50 percent of "The Band's Visit" is in English, the film - an Israeli smash hit and multiple award winner - was deemed ineligible for this year's foreign language Oscar by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. It has also been banned from film festivals in Cairo and Abu Dhabi. What this pellucid little movie uses to unite its characters - language and love - others are using to divide. You don't have to make the same mistake.

The eight members of an Egyptian Police Orchestra, toting their instruments and dressed in ill-fitting uniforms of robin's-egg blue, arrive at a regional Israeli airport for a gig at the opening of a nearby Arab Cultural Center, and nobody shows up to meet them. They wait around for a while, and then ask at the information counter what bus to take into Petah Tikvah, their destination. But they get it wrong, and wind up in the dusty, wind-blown desert town of Betah Tikvah, far from the middle of nowhere.

The Egyptian bandleader, Tawfiq (Sasson Gabai) approaches a sleepy café and asks the Israeli owner for directions to the Arab Cultural Center. Dina (Ronit Elkabetz) regards him with a sardonic half-smile. "Here there is no Arab culture," she says. "Also, no Israeli culture. Here there is no culture at all." When it becomes clear that they have landed in the wrong place and that there's no bus out until the next morning, the Egyptians reluctantly accept the hospitality of the locals. And so ensues a night of uneasy cultural détente. Two of the principal characters, Tawfiq and his young violinist/trumpeter Khaled (Saleh Bakri), are taken in by Dina. There's a tension between the old-school Tawfiq and the hip young Khaled, which is finally softened by their mutual admiration for the great American jazz trumpeter Chet Baker.

A hesitant chemistry slowly develops between Dina and Tawfiq. He is a widower, she's a divorcee. He is the one from a big city, Alexandria, but it is she who shows a worldly, amused sophistication and an unabashed sexiness. She prods the melancholy, stiffly reserved Tawfiq into taking her out to dinner. They pass an awkward but not uncomfortable evening, with the gregarious Dina gradually thawing Tawfiq and drawing him out just a little

Across town, Simon (Khalifa Natour) and the other band members have been farmed out to the household of Dina's brother Itzik (Rubi Moscovich). They sit awkwardly around the dinner table with his family searching for something to talk about. Music turns out to be a common denominator, and finally they all join in singing "Summertime." Simon plays a fragment of his own music for Itzik on his clarinet. "I never finished it," he admits %u2013 it was a sonata he was composing, but family and responsibilities got in the way. Later, after a row with his wife, Itzik joins Simon in his infant son's room where the Egyptian is bunking. "Maybe this is how your sonata ends," the Israeli says wistfully, gesturing at the simple surroundings. "Not sad, not happy. In a small room, and tons of loneliness." The Band's Visit has pathos, but it is also very funny. In a scene that is truly Chaplinesque, Khaled accompanies a café loafer, Papi (Shlomi Avraham) on his date to the dreary local roller disco, and gives the painfully shy young man some hands-on instruction in the finer points of courtship.

The performances are wonderful. Gabai has a face a little like Vincent Price's crammed into a slipper, and he maintains his reserve as if afraid something might break if he allowed a change of expression to cross his features. Tawfiq is fiercely protective of his dignity as head of the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Orchestra, and uncomfortably aware of the ludicrousness of his situation. Elkabetz calls to mind a young Irene Papas, sensuous and intelligent, her face alive with a mordant humor and a poignant longing for something beyond the dusty confines of her provincial world. As a girl, she tells Tawfiq, she adored Egyptian movies and was in love with Omar Sharif. When they played on TV, the streets were empty, with everyone inside watching. But now they don't air Egyptian movies here any more.

A funny thing happened to The Band's Visit on the way to the Oscars. It was expected to be a contender for Foreign Language Film honors, but it was ruled ineligible. Because of the characters' Arabic-Israeli language barrier, they communicate in English, and the Academy disallowed it for too much English language dialogue. Ironically, the producers have decided to subtitle that dialogue in English, although most of it is perfectly understandable, and the titles only clutter up the screen. Israeli writer-director Eran Kolirin, making his feature film debut, handles his material for the most part with pitch-perfect understatement. This is a movie about people from warring cultures who, left to their own devices, find common ground and relate to each other with sympathetic understanding as human beings should. In this setting, far from the stress lines of the hatreds of their respective societies, they do just that. There is hardly any reference to Arab-Israeli tension. "Once, not long ago, a small Egyptian police band arrived in Israel," a voice tells us over the opening credits. "Not many remember this. It was not that important."

But these are the important things, the surprising discoveries that remind us of our shared humanity, and the human comedy that unites us all.

the characters' Arabic-Israeli language barrier, they communicate in English, and the Academy disallowed it for too much English language dialogue. Ironically, the producers have decided to subtitle that dialogue in English, although most of it is perfectly understandable, and the titles only clutter up the screen.

Israeli writer-director Eran Kolirin, making his feature film debut, handles his material for the most part with pitch-perfect understatement. This is a movie about people from warring cultures who, left to their own devices, find common ground and relate to each other with sympathetic understanding as human beings should. In this setting, far from the stress lines of the hatreds of their respective societies, they do just that. There is hardly any reference to Arab-Israeli tension. "Once, not long ago, a small Egyptian police band arrived in Israel," a voice tells us over the opening credits. "Not many remember this. It was not that important." But these are the important things, the surprising discoveries that remind us of our shared humanity, and the human comedy that unites us all.

This melancholy deadpan comedy accepted in three out of Cannes' four official sections and finally running in Un Certain Regard, is a kind of prestidigitator's tightrope act, almost crashing down several times before triumphantly reaching its goal in one piece.

Though nothing much is happening throughout as far as "action" goes, its gentle but painstaking observation of characters and their natural habitat more than compensates, and its quiet, unassuming tone, which prefers to imply rather than trumpet its intentions, is certain to find favour with many arthouse patrons and festival programmers.

If anything, Eran Kolirin's first theatrical feature (he has previously made TV films), is almost too understated for its premise. While it is about the unlikely visit of an Egyptian police band to Israel, it insistently stays away from the obvious political issues suggested by the circumstances. Shai Goldman's sensitive camera and a cast combining experienced veterans such as Ronit Elkabetz and Sasson Gabai, and talented newcomers like Saleh Bakri and Khalifa Natour, join forces to sustain Kolirin across some of the narrative snags that he hits once in a while, ultimately delivering a simple, sincere, conciliatory message in the midst of the fierce Middle East confrontational atmosphere of these days.

Kolirin's script is not very realistic in the present state of relations between Israel and Egypt, and who knows when or if it will ever be, but as the opening gambit for a humanistic fantasy, it is serviceable enough. The Alexandria Police Band, an outfit whose musical credentials may be questionable but whose appearance leaves nothing to be desired, have been invited to play at the opening of a cultural centre in Israel, but no one waits for them when they land at the airport.

Tawfiq (Gabai), the conductor, musical director and commander in charge, is confident that he can manage on his own and will not hear of calling the Embassy and asking for assistance. He puts his band on a bus and reaches a remote, non-descript dormitory town, one of those forsaken new housing projects that all look the same, whether they are in Latin America, the Far East or Israel. At the one kiosk still open and showing some signs of life, they find out they are in the wrong place but there is no transportation available before the next morning. With no hotel in sight for them to stay in, Dina (Elkabetz), the kiosk's owner, suggests they spend the night with some of the local families, inviting a couple of them to share a spare bed in her own flat.

Encounters between the Egyptian uniformed musicians and the local people unfold, suggesting how easy it is for people to understand each other despite not sharing a common language and regardless of the different ethnic characteristics that should alienate them. On the Israeli side, there is a patriarch who remembers his youthful musical aspirations and the Egyptian films that were once immensely popular on Israeli TV; an unemployed husband who loses the respect of his wife; a forlorn lover waiting all night long by the public phone for his girlfriend to call; and Dina herself, a love-hungry middle-aged woman facing painful loneliness. Then there are the strictly correct Tawfiq who is heart-broken after his wife passed away out of sheer grief when he rejected their disobedient son; Simon (Natour), his assistant, searching in vain a suitable climax for his clarinet concerto, and Saleh (Bakri), impatient and rebellious, who would rather play jazz trumpet than traditional violin. Distributed evenly between hosts and guests, these characters transcend their national identity and find, in their own awkward way, how much alike they really are.

Kolirin's script may not be quite tight enough and the laidback pace risks losing the audience every once in a while. But his consistent, life-size, lifelike characters, splendidly placed within a forlorn landscape's intentional banality, is remarkably effective. Shai Goldman's camera provides him with images that are often reminiscent of still-life paintings.

Gabai, generally considered one of the finest actors in the country, has rarely been offered a better opportunity to display his gifts. Alternately stern, rigid, understanding and self-recriminatory, he never puts a foot wrong in a performance controlled down to the smallest detail. Elkabetz is even more surprising, shedding the heavy make-up with which she has been associated, for a simple, unadorned and touching performance.

The Band’s Visit is a lovely first film from young Israeli director Eran Kolirin that offers a Middle Eastern inflection on the bittersweet stylings of Jim Jarmusch and Aki Kaurismäki.

This usually means long, slow pauses, no action and head-scratching finales that prompt the viewer to ask, "Huh?" But the sweetness of the film and the honest observations about opposing societies finding common ground ratchet it up a few notches from the usual tedium brought by currently critically popular directors with no sense of tempo. Eight Egyptian musicians from the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Band arrive at an airport in Israel to play a concert at the opening of a local performing arts center. When their hosts fail to meet and greet their plane, they resort to Plan B, which is the bus. There they stand at a remote bus stop, decked out in loud powder-blue uniforms, slowly realizing they are hopelessly lost. Battling pay phones, grappling with language barriers and more than a bit apprehensive that they are on their own in a hostile country, the orchestra mistakenly take the wrong bus, make a wrong turn, and end up in the desert. Discovering that the last bus back to civilization has gone, they are forced to throw themselves at the mercy of the citizens of a country housing project, rather like a modern kibbutz, where nobody has a clue how to get to a place called the Arab Culture Center.

This is where the fun begins. Grudgingly accepting the sanctuary of a kind-hearted bar owner named Dina, they resolve to spend one single weird and wonderful night in this desolate nowhere town. Think New Yorkers stranded in a whistle stop in the Louisiana swamp. But as the band members endeavor to avoid trouble by being discreet and unobtrusive, the film pivots on the blossoming relationship between the sexy Dina and the irascible conductor, Tewfig, a union symbolic of the idea that there is a potential for political and cultural resolution between Arabs and Jews if they can just make it over the first awkward hurdle.

The fledgling director juxtaposes broad comedy (one especially memorable culture clash takes place in a roller disco) with sparse ironies of character and observation, and what might have easily been a one-note rag ends up a fully arranged concerto. The frustrations of strangers displaced in a foreign land, unfolding in a shaggy-dog narrative, makes for a surprisingly touching movie. By the end, conflicts are resolved, misunderstandings are corrected and differences are overlooked through the universal peace of music. The director sets the film "not long ago," but admitted to me in Toronto that it reflects his childhood in Tel Aviv and his nostalgia for the days when Egyptian movies that were all the rage were broadcast side by side with Israeli concerts on national television. His movie doesn’t glorify the past, but it’s pretty obvious Mr. Kolirin yearns for a simpler time, when shared pleasures like food and music had the potential to bring people together with less formality than bureaucratic summit meetings.

A big hit on the film festival circuit, The Band’s Visit was met with rapturous applause when I saw it last year in Toronto. Its appeal lies squarely in its gentle nature and abundance of understated feeling. It has few words and a big heart. As one critical observer remarked, it sort of runs at you with open arms.

An Egyptian band gets stranded in a nowhere Israeli desert town in "The Band's Visit," a warm and delightful take on cross-cultural relations that proves that sometimes a light touch is just what's needed to address serious topics. Eran Kolirin has a playful eye for compositions and a fine touch with thespers, occasionally playing on the borders of cute but reining in before going to the wrong side of sentiment. An audience charmer that's sure to sweep Israel -- and Egypt too if allowed to open -- offshore arms will be more than welcoming.

When their hosts fail to turn up at the airport, the Alexandria Ceremonial Police Band take a bus to the town they're supposed to be playing. Not only isn't it much of a place, it's also not their place, but the last bus has gone and they don't know where they're supposed to go. To quell grumblings already afoot among members, conductor Tawfiq (Sasson Gabai) hesitantly accepts a suggestion from cafe manager Dina (Ronit Elkabetz) to stay the night.

Tawfiq and handsome ladies' man Khaled (Saleh Bakri) bunk together at Dina's. She's not the kind of woman Tawfiq is used to: wry, with an outward, playful self-confidence and undisguised sexuality. The awkward, melancholy band leader reluctantly accepts Dina's invitation to dinner, where her needy flirtation and his gentlemanly sadness form a bridge of understanding.

Meanwhile, Khaled tags on to the socially awkward Papi (Shlomi Avraham) for a night at a roller disco, culminating in a hilarious lesson on how to treat women. Other band members, headed by second-in-command Simon (Khalifa Natour), stay with Itzik (Rubi Moscovich), leading to tensions with his family and revelations about fulfillment. Balanced by a very funny rendition around the dinner table of "Summertime," these scenes have something profound to say, but never feel heavy-handed.

By pic's end it's not just that the Israelis and Egyptians have learned something about each other, they've learned something about themselves. Mastering these lessons without becoming artificially rosy-eyed would defeat a lesser talent, but both in script and direction Kolirin proves he's more than up to the task. His picaresque humor and witty style are a joy to behold, as is his respect for all quirks of character.

Thesping is terrific, with everyone in perfect tune. Acting powerhouse Elkabetz displays a wonderful comic charm, sardonic yet warm and ultimately vulnerable -- her head keeps moving slightly in a swagger that's more protective armor than artifice. She and Gabai play perfectly together, his shy eyes almost afraid of her challenging, affectionate gaze.

Newcomer Bakri, too, has a great flare for timing and exudes buckets of uncomplicated charm.

Visuals are a particular pleasure: Kolirin has a witty sense of composition, unexpectedly passing people in and out of the frame to maximum, but not overdone, humorous effect. The band's light blue uniforms, contrasted against the desert, are ideal visual reminders that they're out of place, and yet as pic makes clear, there's every reason in the world for them to be there. Music, that ideal bringer-together of cultures, beautifully contributes to the theme.